The strength of my bones
by neverland300690
Summary: The army of the Vale rallied around her as if around a banner, all swearing on their honor they would help her win back her stolen birthright. So did the North when they finally found a Stark to rally around. And though there was no sister to be saved, locked away with the Boltons, Sansa did find a brother. And between that and everything else, she found herself too.
1. Chapter 1

"We die with the dying:  
See, they depart, and we go with them.  
We are born with the dead:  
See, they return, and bring us with them."

— T.S. Eliot, from "Little Gidding," The Four Quartets

They had been marching for more than a month, through wind, rain, and the growing cold. Some days Sansa felt numb from head to foot; others she felt like her very skin was afire and she would be relieved to crawl out of it. She hurt in places that she did not even know she could hurt, something that had surprised her somewhat. She hadn't thought any hurt could be new to her body, after what she had suffered under the mailed fists of Joffrey's kingsguard, but then again she of all people should never presume to underestimate the capabilities of a body for hurting. Pain comes in so many flavors after all.

Whenever the army stopped to rest, she would dismount and feel her thigs give, her hands hurt and chafe. Sometimes she thought better of even getting off her horse for fear of not having the nerve to get back on it again.

And yet she was ever impatient to press forward, though she tied her best to hide it. (too many eyes on her, too close). What if they were too late? What if the battle was done before they got there? What if Arya…

Arya…

Sansa glanced to her right, to where lady Brienne stood tall and forbidding to any who might think to come close to her person. What if Lady Brienne was wrong? What if the story Petyr had been telling the Vale Lords and those of the North was as true as he made it sound -. as true as the Boltons told. What if it was Arya learning Ramsey Bolton's flavours of pain, now, in some room or cold dungeon.

Her fierce little sister, always so unruly. Dark hair and grey eyed, always scowling when she couldn't get her stitches right.

Always at odds for stupid things.

Sansa looked up, blinking fast to keep the traitorous tears at bay. Her exhaustion made her susceptible to feelings long buried.

You must not think of it. Not now.

Sansa stood from the small stool as gracefully as she could. She made her apologies to the men and Harry and then informed them that she was weary from the hard march and would retire. None argued. Harry made a show of kissing her hand. He'd been much more gallant to her, since she walked out with her blazing red hair and cloaked in white, snarling direwolf on her back. He knew now that she was Sansa Stark, daughter of Eddard Stark and Catlyn Tully. Blood of Winterfell and daughter of the North.

And yet, for all her beauty and her charms, what Harry the Heir – and many others - saw was not Sansa, but rather a collection of the people who had died to make her of such value. Daughter to dead parents and their heir in the North; niece of a heir of Riverrun, who had perished, cousin to a sickly boy who all thought would die too soon to inherit it. Promised to the Vale by through her hand in marriage. Sansa Stark was currently one of the most powerful single entities in the seven kingdoms…

The truth of it was, she was still just a very valuable commodity.

No one will ever want you for you. Sansa had realized this some time ago.

She had tried to teach herself how not to let this upset her for some time. Besides, once she got a bit of room to decide on her own what she meant to do with herself, who she was and what that blood in her veins meant to the people around her started to be less of a liability. Thanks to Petyr she did have some control over what happened to her person.

Is it you who has control though? Or someone else?

Does it matter?

Petyr Baelish and Littlefinger… they had both taught her things she would have never learned on her own and he had kept her alive, one way or another. And when the time came and Sansa Stark walked into a hall filled with all the lords of the Vale, all had happened as he had told her it would. Like from a song, all the knights present swearing their strength to her cause, wanting to fight to win back her birthright and save her sister from a monster.

Just like Petyr had said they would.

(Sansa had always thought it would be touching, such a thing. It had not been. All she could think was of what they wanted from her next.)

Some kisses here and there were a small price to pay for that… were they not?

From one cage to another, it's no matter. You have to learn the rules to play the game, and I am learning. I know my songs well, Sansa thought and spared a moment for the man that had demanded one of those songs from her one fiery night, a long time ago.

Her steps were hurried as she walked away from the fire. She could not sit still.

She didn't know in her heart which was would be worse: that Arya might truly be in Winterfell, captive of their enemies. Or that she might be as lost as lady Brianne believed her to be, and this was all a lie conceived by the Boltons and the Lannisters, to get a more solid hold on the North through a so called Stark's blood.

Lost is not dead, Sansa told herself as she walked to her tent, deciding to retire for the night. Lost might mean free.

It was too much to hope. And that feeling was one Sansa distrusted about all else.

She distrusted most things these days.

You distrust Littelfinger most of all, or you would have told him about this.

But she hadn't. Nor had she breathed a word of it to any of the Vale Lords. One of the reasons they were riding was to save Arya Stark. Where would they go if there was no daughter of Eddard Stark to save?

(they are riding for their own reasons, and you know this. where were they when you were the one begging to be saved?)

Instead she had sword both Brienne and Podrick to secrecy, so that they may never repeat of seeing Arya when they had. Lovely Brienne, who had followed the march and challenged every knight in the Vale for the right to be Sansa's sword shield - again. This time Sansa had accepted.

'I will keep your council faithfully, my Lady.' That was what Brianne had said, and though Sansa held her trust as close to herself as she held the bones of her body, she did trust Brienne to keep her word. Sansa had lost faith in men being able to be true knights from her songs… but Lady Brienne was no man. And she was the truest knight Sansa had met in her life.

As she readied for sleep she wondered if there was any truth to other tales that had come from the North, the farther into the north the Vale army went. They were so ludicrous she had dismissed them, but only because she couldn't possibly believe news that was so contradictory. Jon Snow had been killed by his sword Brothers. Jon Snow had betrayed this vows. Jon Snow was trying to rally the north to save Arya Stark from the Boltons. It was him leading the army. He had been dead but now he was not.

What was the truth?

Was her half brother a traitor? Was he a deserter? Was he even alive. (she would forgive anything of him, if only he had dared the gods and stayed alive, where all the rest of their family had been killed)

What is the truth Jon?

She folded her aching body into the furs and closed her eyes. The truth wouldn't matter. For so long she had thought she would never see the faces of her family again as she lived. Jon Snow might very well be dead, so Sansa did not dare to hope. Once she might have wished to see him.

Now, though Alayne Sone had been left behind and she could still have a bastard brother, Sansa's heart was too heavy to beat for such a sweet promise. But in her dreams, she was free. And for so long, it was among her brothers and along her sister and their parents that Sansa found her only solace. She dreamt of Jon Snow too, his face that of a young boy, the only way she could remember him.

When she woke, she dried the tears on her pillow as she had every morning, and steeled her face for another long march.

Whatever the truth, she would find it out soon enough. And stop the torment of not knowing. (hope had its own form of cruelty too)


	2. Chapter 2

\- ii -

The forest was dark, its eerie quiet broken by the quiet trotting of the horses of their party, and lived up by the sounds that thickened the night into a living thing, and made all men and women feel like they did not belong in it anymore. Nature had expelled man from it's bosom long ago. The night belonged to its own creatures now.

And yet teh Vale army had dared the shadow hours of dawn, to speed up their progress on the northern plains. They were close now, but there was no way to find out where the northern army was camped, and where the Bolton forces were moving to. Their last scouts – men from the Marshes of the Greywater Watch, had told them that Ramsay Snow, now Bolton, had taken some 3000 men and planned to attack the northern forces Jon and his men had gathered before they ever befell Winterfell.

Sansa had heard many kinds of counsel as they progressed. Some wanted to join the norther army at once, other wanted to wait and catch the Boltons unaware. Sansa though... she was assailed with the thought of wanting to see her brother. And at the same time, she was so terrified of the prospect that her heart fluttered painfully at the thought of it.

What would he think of her? Of who she had become Who she had had to be, do, to stand before him alive on this day. Who would he be? She did not know. She knew nothing of the man he was now, other than he had been Lord Commander for a time, before tales started getting stranger and stranger. She knew his name was always spoken in whispers in the North, as if he was some kind of God. Impossible things she couldn't believe.

Who was the man she would call brother? Sansa didn't know. She'd hardly even known the boy he'd once been. No, she'd never been close to Jon.

Be true, a voice whispered in her mind, unyielding, unforgiving. At least to yourself. You were cold and wretched to him.

She'd thought on it a long time. Days and days now that she was Sansa Stark again and she could indulge in thoughts of a missing sister and dead brothers, and the last of her family that for sure was alive to her. The only one.

Why would Jon ever want to see her again? It was his other sister he was rallying the North to save. What would he think when she told him it wasn't his Arya held captive in Winterfell? Their Arya... That it was some unknown girl of their age who looked like their sister enough to make a passable lie.

Would she tell him?

Or will you use him?

Her thoughts were as dark as the night around them. She could not help them. She had lost faith and trust in the good will of men.

There are no heroes.

Sansa dared a glance to her right, where Petyr rode beside her. The lords of the Vale, men who had sword themselves to her service. They so rarely seemed to remember she too had a mind of her own.

You need to talk to them in a language they are prepared to accept from you.

Yes she knew her lessons. Smiles, manners, secrets.

What will Jon Snow want from you?

A better question would always be what would she want from him.

She had been tried by many hurts, held captive and punished and hidden away. Masked and lived in the skin of another for a long while. She had learned many lessons life had had to give, learned them in tears blood and skin-crawling discomfort... and yet, in her deepest of hearts, she still remained the same girl her parents had raised. The only difference was that now Sansa could hold that child's face between her hands, and look at it for what it was. The face of innocence. She could see what lay beyond it too, now. But on that smooth sweet face of the girl she had once been, in those eyes and in that heart within a heart, she was still was the kind of girl who always wanted everything, even as she feared it within the same breath. What she had been through had not managed to teach her how to forget wanting soft things. Yarning for them

Would this forever be her doom?

She wanted everything from the idea of a brother she did not know. A brother she had never loved well enough to deserve a place in his heart for so long. She wanted a a familiar face, and someone to trust and someone to call family again. Someone that would hold her the way her father had held her and mean it.

I want to go home.

Sansa Stark, she thought with an unkind sneer: the dreamer girl. Such a stupid little girl.

Nothing. She should want nothing, and expect nothing... There was safety in nothing.

The rider ahead stopped and Brienne called for Sansa to stop too, in a voice so low it barely reached Sansa's ears.

"What is it?" Sansa asked, eyes scanning the darkness ahead of her. The grey fingers of dawn were rising higher now and with them the mist of the morning but the darkness of the forest was as thick as its chill. She could not see farther ahead than three riders.

"Something is moving in the trees over there." Brienne said, her hand going to her sword. Sansa felt her heart start beating faster. She was surrounded by a whole army and yet she had forgotten how to feel safe, even among so many armed men.

All this was so new, she didn't know what safety looked like on a march, amongst thousands of men.

The horses ahead spooked and their riders tried to calm them. Some of the men ahead started grumbling. A man ran to them, speaking to Petyr and harry both, out of breath.

"A great beast. White as snow and big as a horse."

Wolves... they whispered. And Sansa tightened her hands on her reigns.

Ghost...

She looked up, anxious now as she scanned the trees for the great beast that had been such a pup last she'd ever seen him. Her brother's wolf. Lady's brother. The smallest of them all once, the most quiet.

Her heart was beating in her throat all the way to the tips of her fingers. What was this? .

Without realizing she had urged her horse forward.

"My lady!"

Brienne's worried reprehension stopped her. Sansa turned her head, found many pairs of stunned eyes looking at her. She was forgetting herself... and she did not want to care.

"That is my brother's wolf. He is not to be harmed." She said to the Captain that had come to deliver the news. He did not seem reassured. On the contrary, he paled even further.

"With all respect my lady, we rather fear he might harm us."

"He won't." Sansa was surer of that than she was of anything else. She knew enough to distrust men, but her certainty of their direwolves pulsed with the same ache with which she still felt for Lady. She did not know how she knew, she just did.

"And we cannot afford to harm him either way." She looked around, meeting Petyr's eye and those of the lords Declarant. "Ghost is my brother's most faithful guard, as Grey Wind was Robb's. A direwolf is the sigil of my house. It's a good omen that he is here to make our way, I think."

"My lady, the beast is enormous." The captain continued, almost as if he hadn't heard her. "The men are agitated."

Sansa tightened her hands around the reins. Her palfrey protested.

"Then surely the sight of their Lady meeting such danger without fear will calm them." Her own voice sounded so strange to her ears as it gave orders. It was a practiced tone – but not this time. This time it just was. "Take me to where you saw the beast."

A small voice was asking her what she thought she was doing, whether this was how she wanted to die. Another, the voice of dreams and the certainty with which she had once believe d in songs, was strong and sure in telling her 'you should not fear this. There is nothing to fear here.'

She wanted to be sure. She was not.

But she would dare.

Sansa had always dared for a chance – a chance to be free, to be happy, to be safe. Never had it worked, but she would not stop now, when she was so close. So close she could almost taste home on her lips.

"My lady, I beg you to reconsider."

It was Littlefinger's voice, but it was Petyr's clear sharp eyes looking at her then that gave her pause. But before he could speak again, Harry intervened. He was looking at her as if she were mad. As if he were a breath away from issuing a command and only remembered himself because of the grey fur around her neck and the blaze of her red hair remind him who she was.

"My dear lady Sansa, this is no pet you seek, nor even a wolf."

If she had a grain of corn for every time a man tried to explain the north to her, she would be able to feed this army for years.

"Indeed, my lord. He's a direwolf." And though her smile was sweet – she remembered to wear it when her voice was hard with command – and her eyes were bright, they were sharp enough to cut glass. "And so am I."

She didn't even have to ride that far. Ghost had skirted the edged of the wood and was now so close she could see his outline in the grey light of the pale dawn. As drawn to her, perhaps (such a fanciful mind you have) as she felt to him. Against all reason and truth in this world.

Gods, he was truly a frightening sight, Sansa thought as she dismounted and took off her gloves. She shook with excitement, with pure fear too.

"Stay back lady Brienne. And keep your word sheathed, please."

Sansa hardly even heard her own voice as Ghost stepped forward. More than eighty men around her, the best knights of the Vale and their Lords, and none dared speak as she extended a hand to the giant wolf.

He was white as snow, and spattered with mud all over. His jaws were painted dark too and though Sansa could not see it well, she was sure... her stomach turned. She was sure that was blood.

What am I doing?

Her mouth tasted bitter and her blood was loud in her ears.

I am afraid but I can be brave. Like father always said. Like Robb and mother. Brave like Arya... and Jon.

Ghost didn't make a sound when his cold nose touched her equally cold fingers. Sansa flinched, but didn't move. His eyes were as red as blood. From this close she could see their unearthly shade, where before they had shined like stones in the dark.

"Hello Ghost." She said, a whisper soft enough to get lost with all the other sounds of the dawn and life awakening around her.

He sniffed her hand some more, her wrist. She could not imagine what she smelled like to him: she hadn't had a proper bath since the march started - that was the unlikely thought in her head then as her heart tried to break her ribs and burst through them - so she reckoned she smelled awful.

Ghost sat down on it's haunches. His head came up almost on the same level with hers.

Sansa breath shook as she exhaled. "Gods, you are frightening."

He was.

Do you remember me, brother?

But Ghost was not her brother. Jon was. And Sansa was not Ghost's sister: Lady had been. The smallest of the pack, the both of them - but especially Ghost. She had helped feed him once, when he was so small that he couldn't even lap at the milk and nobody thought he'd live past his first days.

Look at you now...Look at us both.

Ghost inched his head forward, ears flattened against his head, tail thumping against the ground. Sansa leaned forward, letting him smell her hair, her cheek and neck. She could practically hear all those big men with swords holding their breaths at the same time. When Ghost licked her cheek, the laugh that escaped her was pure surprise, and wet with unshed tears.

Only then did she dare to reach out and touch him, fingers brushing against the fur of his neck, his head.

"Will you take me to him?"

Ghost stood so suddenly it was all Sansa could do not to lurch backwards. He trotted around her in a circle, his long bushy tail almost hitting her as he did, making her smile more truly than she had in so long. Making her eyes sting.

She picked up her riding skirts and hastened to her horse, barely noticing the looks the men around her were giving her.

She turned brightened eyes and flushed cheeks to Petyr.

"We follow him. He will takes us to the northern encampment by a safe trail."

Littlefinger raised his eyebrows just a fraction at her, the corner of his lips arching up like a hook catching on flesh.

"The beast spoke thus to you?" His voice was soft and it was meant to sound light, but Sansa knew better. She'd known for a long time he didn't like her doing things he had not foreseen or could not control.

Sansa stood a bit straighter on the saddle. "Beasts cannot speak, my lord. I simply know."

"How?" Yohn Royce asked, though he was less confrontational and more awed – Sansa could see it in his eyes.

"I just do."

And then she steered her horse away, and Brienne and Podrick followed, leaving the others no alternative but to do so as well. Ghost ran ahead of them, his paws seeming to barely tough the ground so fast and light he was despite his monstrous size.

And Sansa felt for the first time in her life, the thrill of a fast ride, with a wolf's howl preceding her, parting a trail for her as if the hard land itself was welcoming her back to its cold bosom, like

She didn't want to die, but if she had to, she was glad it would be here. She was so close to home. So close now that she was more frightened then ever of reaching it.


	3. Chapter 3

iii

Brienne had ridden by lady Sansa's side the whole time the Vale army marched, as she had stood by her side when the Vale ships crossed the sea and landed in White Harbor. Nobody doubted her place anymore or tried to have her removed from it, and not only because Brienne would face any such challenge with her sword, but because everyone could see plainly that Lady Stark had taken a liking to her sworn sword, and such was her faith in Brienne's abilities that she availed herself of no other guard.

Which was why Brienne had almost felt her heart crawl up her throat when she saw Sansa Stark approach that unbelievable white beast as if they were old friends from a different time.

It had been hard to believe one's eyes when the direwolf, a beast such as none Brienne had ever seen before, had been as gentle to Sansa Stark's touch as a pup. Stranger things had happened to be sure, but Brienne had not been there to witness those things. And as she watched that wolf circle Sansa with a wagging tail, those old stories she had never credited with truth, about how there was old magic in the Stark blood, started feeling realer.

But this was no tale of old. This was truth Brienne was witnessing with her own eyes. And it was not in magic that she believed in, but in the courage of the heart. Men said that Sansa Stark looked so like her lady mother because of her face and her the fiery shade of her hair – and Brienne agreed – but she thought it was something deeper than skin that liked mother and daughter. The same kind of bravery lived in them: a certainty within themselves, unflinching even in front of what cowered all other men.

So when Lady Stark urged her horse forward to follow that great big wolf, Brienne went after her without a fraction of hesitation or questions.

Brienne expected their little party to be intercepted by scouts, which was why there was half a dozen men riding with the Lady for her protection as well as the lords of the Vale following behind, but ether the wolf really did lead them on by the safest trail, or they were seen but went undisturbed because of the presence of the beast.

When the northern camp came into view, the white wolf howled. The earsplitting sound ripped the morning open and it made Brienne shiver just as it caught the attention of the guards stationed by the perimeter. They seemed as surprised to see their party under Vale and Stark colors, as they were hesitant to raise their weapons to them, eyes flitting between Lady Sansa and the men behind her – and the direwolf that led their way.

When the Lady announced herself as Sansa Stark of Winterfell and demanded to see her brother, her voice sounded strong and she sounded certain, but Brienne could see the white-knuckled grip Sansa held on the reins. She had forgotten to put on that one glove she took off in the forest, and that if nothing else, told Brienne that there was much that was living beneath that impassive set of her face.

They passed through the camp quietly, but Brienne was painfully aware of the way every man in there stopped whatever they were doing to look upon Lady Stark as she passed. Those looks kept her hand firmly on her sword and her eyes ever vigilant. Men stared at Sansa Stark here as they always stared at her everywhere but there were not so many leering looks as there were wide eyes and slack jaws that followed her passing. A few even bowed. Brienne knew what they thought they were seeing: Catelyn Stark come again.

Brienne could understand that. The startling resemblance between mother and daughter had almost taken her breath away too, the first time she'd laid eyes on it. And from someone who had not lived through the hardship of finally standing here to this point, it must sound formidable: the shewolf returning with an army at her back to claim back her home, avenge her family and have justice for her people.

It sounded like something out of a song.

And though it was not untrue, it remained a story, much to Brienne's disillusionment. One that careful people spun ahead of the Vale army coming to the North. People like Petyr Baelysh, who always stood a little too close to Lady Sansa for Brienne's comfort. But songs could not tell of the frightening things, and the darker things, and how the pain of life did not give one wings to fly away or strength. That sometimes it just hurt. There were words in the songs for the wretchedness and the violence. They made it pretty or heroic or right and rarely, had Brienne found, was life any of those things. But people could be.

Brienne believed in good things still, in true things; in the rightness of her purpose and her pledge to Lady Catelyn and her daughter. And Sansa Stark was easy to believe in. A woman worth serving with honor, as her lady mother had been. As – all said – her lord father had been too.

But Lady Stark, who was usually so mindful of the eyes that followed her around and that bore them as if they had true weight, seemed to have no care for that now. Her hands fidgeted, she was shivering and her eyes jumped around, frantic. Searching. Brienne wished to ease her, but she knew the best she could do for the lady now was be the shield she had promised to be. So she kept close and kept watchful.

When Sansa dismounted her horse, Brienne saw her wince, but knew better than to offer a helping hand. It did not do to appear weak in front of men, the lady would say, and Brienne knew the truth of it well. But there was naked fear in Sansa Stark's face now, an emotion that Brienne had not seen there so plainly… ever.

Sansa was more open and held Brienne's council closer than her mother had. Perhaps it was her youth, or how starved she had been for company she felt she could trust, but Brienne felt that the young lady Stark was as much in need of a friend as she was of a sworn shield. And in truth… it had felt good to be a friend, and gain one in return. It was their closeness that gave Brienne a way to understand Sansa's better, even on things that she never spoke of openly. Brienne knew, for instance, that the thought of seeing her half-brother unsettled Sansa deeply. It was in the way she looked away and pursed her lips, in the way she wringed her hands whenever Jon Snow's name came up. It was in the hint of desperation in her clear blue eyes as she looked around and did not find a familiar face.

Brienne added her own searching eyes to the task. And perhaps it was chance, or perhaps her height, but she saw Jon Snow the moment she started looking for him.

Or at least, the man Brienne thought was Jon Snow.

She did not notice how Sansa caught her look and turned to follow it, but she did notice the way her lady stilled a moment after. Even though she had not been moving before, this stillness now was different. It seemed as if lady Stark was not even breathing anymore. Brienne looked back to the young man. Even if the white wolf had not been stalking his side, she would know he was the half brother Sansa Stark had been looking for.

Brienne had never seen Ned Stark, but she could see a shadow of Arya Stark's features in Jon Snow's face. It was in his dark hair and dark eyes, that same long face. And even if she had been blind to all these similarities, the way he froze when his eyes met Lady Stark's, would have given him away. His face, so unexpressive and shuttered down before he caught sight of his sister's, now was awash in incredulity. He seemed to be so shaken by the sight of her, he took a small step backwards, making the men around him look at their commander with plain surprise and confusion.

He looked a man, but in that moment Jon Snow's eyes were those of a boy. There was fear there, as there was fear in the way lady Stark's hand shook before she balled it up into a fist. She stood her ground despite of it, just as her brother moved forward with the same stubbornness, an almost dreamy disbelief in his eyes even as he dared not blink. If Brienne were better with words, she'd say Jon Snow looked as if he was afraid to step closer to his sister for fear of seeing her disappear.

Brienne followed his movements with her hand tightening around the pommel of her sword instinctively. She wished she was standing in front of her lady instead of behind her, so that she could see her face to judge her feelings. She lived now to put herself between Sansa and whatever came for her, but at the same time, she did not dare move.

Brienne looked around, to all those watching. Confusion and awe painted the weathered faces of the men around her. The weight of the past few years was in the collective memory brought forth by their silence – a heavy thing that felt almost sacred, for how much history and blood it was made up of. It all seemed to weight down more heavily than ever in that moment, time and suffering as real a presence between the two siblings as the distance that separated them.

Jon Snow faltered some steps away from his sister, just stood there looking at her, and every living being between them seemed to hold its breath. The world and all it's very real troubles had gone quiet; a silence so thick that a whisper would have traveled across the whole army.

It was her Lady's harsh breath that broke that silence, when she lurched forward and in her brother's arms, an action as uncharacteristic of the cautious Sansa Stark, as it was telling of her true feelings beneath the thin veneer of her impassivity. But Jon Snow caught her as if it was natural, and Sansa Stark was lifted off her feet in his embrace. The two Starks held each other as if their lives depended on it (and perhaps it did), and Brienne bit her lip to contain her smile, looking down to give her lady the privacy she deserved. Their reunion belonged to them alone and it felt almost like intruding to look upon family in such a raw and emotional moment, even as overwhelming emotion stung Brienne's eyes as well.

It was a strange feeling, to be so deeply moved for another. A feeling that lived both inside her, for it belong to her, and out – because it belonged to Sansa Stark and it was in her happiness that Brienne took joy in. But it was real, and after so much hardship she knew Sansa had endured, Brienne felt honored to be able to have taken her here at least part of the way.

She would follow her lady anywhere, that was what she swore. And she would protect her happiness as fiercely as she protected her person. …Which was why Brienne trusted her instinct and her heart when it told her to be weary, as she caught the way Petyr Balish looked on. His expression was blank, lips pursed and his eyes guarded. Brienne found this kind of face on the man to be more true to who he was, than he ever looked when he tried to smile. Silence seemed to be the only time when Littlefinger was honest.

Brienne felt dread slide along her spine like a chunk of melting snow and she straightened, took another good look around herself as many more men – northerners and vale men alike – gathered around their lady to welcome her. Yes, she would be careful.


	4. Chapter 4

my apologies for the not so subtle skipping of the political aspects of this whole thing. I haven't read the books and therefore know little of northern politics, (who wants what from whom and how they get it) since the show has done a rather poor job of illustrating it. this is more about the character's feelings anyway. i hope you enjoy ;)

* * *

iv.

 _"I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do."_

\- F. Scott Fitzgerald,More Than Just A House

She was afraid… so afraid when she saw him. One side of her face felt hot and the other cold and both her hands shook, heart beating at the tips of her fingers. She could not believe her eyes… yet he was right there, and walking towards her, looking at her like he too was afraid to think her real, for fear that this moment might slip through his fingers too, like smoke. Like another dream had too often to believe in now.

He was the first familiar face she had seen in years. Years of missing her family and cutting out the pain by trying to forget who Sansa Stark ever was and who that child had betrayed… and all those lessons faded when Jon's familiar eyes looked at her. When she looked at him.

It was the look on his face, that trembling disbelief and open fear he looked at her with, that finally crumbled every reserve Sansa had held and made her throw every cautious to the wind. Jon Snow looked at her with Arya's eyes and their father's kind face and she couldn't… she couldn't stand there wondering what he would do and how she should act as if this was a game and every bit of true self that remained to her beneath her thin skin wasn't screaming at her to cry, to shake. To hold on to the only family she had left and never let go.

And they both stood there like fools, afraid to reach for each other.

When she'd thrown herself at him she hadn't thought of anything else but what it would feel to be held by someone who wanted nothing of her but her embrace. And as always, Sansa hadn't thought it through to the end. If she had, Sansa would have realized sooner that no matter who held her now, she could not return to being a girl and to what it used to feel to be made small by her father's embrace… but when Jon caught her and lifted her off her feet, there in his arms was the closest she had felt to home in a long time.

Such a long time.

He held her tightly and Sansa forgot everything she had learned. She forgot what it felt to be afraid and to be cold and to never feel safe and always look for the knife in the dark. She couldn't remember those things, the felt placeless in that moment. Jon was there. She was with family again. Jon with her sister's eyes and her father's face and snow melting in his hair, just like Robb a long time ago. She was home. He was family.

The pack survives.

We will not fight each other will we, Jon?

That was the thought in her head when he set her down and they finally looked into each other's faces again, tremulous smiles on them that felt shy and awkward.

We'll be good, won't we.

But it was merely a wish. A child's prayer, again. Silly girl and your silly wishes. But that didn't stop her. On the contrary: her will burned brighter.

Please, please, please…

And then… 'I will make it so. I will make you love me. We can find happiness again. We can. We will. The pack survives.'

Her lips trembled and she pressed them together harder. She didn't want to cry. Tears had no place there. The smile she gave him was utterly unplanned, slipping through the frantic rhythm of her heart and the ball of grief lodged in her throat. A sad happiness they made: her and Jon Snow and everyone they had loved and lost around them, ghosts over their shoulders.

"Jon…"

She was shaking still and her laugh was soaked in tears even though her cheeks were dry. Not for long though, she thought when she saw him smile back.

Jon Snow smiling… When had she last seen that? it was so foreign. His face blurred and Sansa looked up and blinked fast to hold back the tears, biting her lip to contain her smile.

His hand came up to her face. She barely felt it.

"Are you hurt?"

Sansa blinked, confused, her hand following his. Her own bare fingers felt colder on her cheek than his gloved ones had and the feel of them shocked her into her shiver body again after long moments of breathlessness. It was only then that Sansa remembered they were in an encampment and that there were countless people around them even now… People watching. The weight of so many stares hit her behind the head, a real blow. She stiffened with awareness and that same awareness pushed back the wave of her emotions… down into a quiet place where they could not be painted on her face for all to see.

"No. No, I'm not." A breathless laugh left her. It was such a diaphanous thing to say when she had been hurt more times than he could know, but all that felt so far away now. "You?"

Some said he'd died, but perhaps that was just another exaggeration. She had felt the strength of his arms when he'd held her tightly enough to make her feel safe even if she wanted to break apart. She'd felt no weakness of old wounds in him then, but then again she knew little of it all.

But Jon's simply shook his head, his eyes fixed on her face, still unlinking. She was afraid to blink too. afraid that she might close her eyes and he'd be gone.

"There's blood on your cheek." Jon said by way of explanation.

"Oh." The words hardly made sense, but then she remembered and it was a bit like waking up. And Sansa felt like laughing again. "Ghost said hello."

She could see that there were more men moving towards, them, lords she recognized from stories and from having met them years ago. Familiar coats of arms related to houses of the North she knew here and there, and there are people clothes strangely that she did not recognize, but that she could easily gather were the wildlings. Sansa straightened and looked at Jon again. She felt steadier now, and the fact that neither had moved a step away from the other warmed her into smiling at him again, this time not so shaky as before.

"It's good to see you again, Jon." Sansa finally said, and so far this was the closest to a proper greeting she had given him. In any other circumstance she would have been distressed at her own actions… but even now she could not manage any regret for them. If any, she would have liked to be held longer.

"It's good to see you too." Jon's lip twitch upwards again and for a moment he seemed not to know what to say but then he gave in. "You've grown taller."

Lightness bubbled up inside her. Happiness like this came with the aftertaste of fear, it was so foreign to her now. But it was there. And it also made Sansa want to put her arms around Jon again and cry for a year.

But she would not be doing that. Instead raised one amused eyebrow at him.

"Taller than you, you mean?"

She'd never teased him before, but she didn't even hesitate now. A tease was a safe refuge. A side-stepping of all that is left unspoken between them.

He huffed something that might have been a laugh's cousin twice removed.

"Don't get ahead of yourself now."

When that tear that she had been trying to hold off finally sprung free and fell down her cheek, Sansa didn't notice. Jon did though, and the way his smile fell, eyes softening into gentleness as he reached for her face to wipe it away, made it so that more of those same tears followed the first.

Sansa huffed and shook her head, wiped her tears away as if they were an annoyance, the way Arya used to when she was small. She took two deep breaths and then she knew she would be calm. Had she been any less comfortable in her own skin she would have been terribly embarrassed by her outburst and all that followed, but she had long since understood that nothing had to be embarrassing, of only one knew how to handle oneself after.

Sansa linked her fingers together in front of her and looked at her half brother with a solemn face and bright eyes. She would have smiled again if there had not been so many people around them now.

"It seems to me like you're in need of assistance here, Jon."

He gave her one single nod. "We are."

"Good."

In all the stories she had heard and all the times they had played as children, she had been the princess that the brave knight saved. This time Sansa liked to think she was the one dong the saving for her brother. A new way to tell an old story, and a way she liked. She had been sitting still for someone to save her for far too long.

When she took Jon's arm and faced the northern Lords and the Vale men, she knew what she was dong. She was aware – even more so when she met Petyr's eye and the Harry's, that a new level of the game had begun and that other than the battle for Winterfell would be fought in the field by men with swords but also in whispers. she would have to put her every strength to the test, but this was the one game she had to win.

And she would.

Because the only thing that she had wanted more than to be free was to go home. It was time, she thought as the war council assembled to reevaluate the new capabilities of the northern forces. It was time for the Starks to return to Winterfell.

And when Jon offered her the high seat on the table, Sansa held his eyes for a long moment before she took it. This was no honorary tribute to her. It was an acknowledgment. One she had not expected so soon, but found in her heart that she was not even that surprised. The northern Lords would not take it lightly, that much even Sansa knew. She sat down, but with her hand she gestured the empty seat to her right. He took it.

(How she missed him. It surprised her how much. She didn't know him, perhaps she never really had, but she wanted to. Who are you Jon Snow? Who have you become?)

And just like that, her mind too knew where her safest place would be, as her heart had known it the moment she laid eyes on him.


End file.
